Foam pads composed of a flexible foam type material such as polyvinylchloride, urethane and olefinic polymers, such as polyethylene, typically having a thickness of about 1/2 to 11/2 inches and having one or more side edges with interlockable male and female sections are well known. The foam pads are used to prepare foam type exercise pads, for example, where the foam pads have the male and female interlockable sections on two or three side edges, and are also used for children's play toys for the construction of three-dimensional interlockable foam structures, such as for example a box with diecut-out numbers or figures in the pad or house type structures. Such interlockable foam pads are composed of a single foam sheet material having a single foam density, generally of a sufficiently high density to permit the structural integrity of the three-dimensional structures to be formed by the interlocking foam pads, such as for example having a foam sheet material of 5 pcf or more and may be formed for example of cross-linked substantially closed-cell polyethylene foam material.
Interlocking of the male and female sections adjoining foam pads is accomplished by aligning of male sections over the female sections and thereafter exerting a downward force on the male sections to go into and to align in a single plane the male section with the female section to form the interlocking foam pad structure. Where such interlockable foam pad structures are employed with children, particularly young children of less than about 6 to 8 years of age, such children find increased difficulty in assembling such foam pad structures due to the amount of pressure required to form the interlocking foam pad structures.
It is desired to provide for a new and improved interlockable foam pad to form interlockable foam pad structures, particularly adapted for use by children, wherein the interlocking of the foam pads together to form the foam pad structures is easily and simply accomplished and yet which does not affect the interlocking ability of the foam pad or the structural integrity of the resulting structures.